Extremely conservative, Tea Party-friendly groups like Club for Growth are beginning a campaign to slaughter Republicans who move to the center over the next two years: governors, Representatives, Senators. And thanks to Citizens United, they pose a greater threat within the GOP than they ever have before.

That's the truth of the matter.

The GOP just got spanked in the POTUS race, lost seats in the Senate and lost the popular vote in the House (though gerrymandering kept them in the majority). They face demographics and a new generation whose views are evolving to be more center-left than they've been in decades, and the trend seems to be excellerating.

It makes total sense for the GOP to consider moderating, and for Republicans in office to consider to adapt towards the center.

But the Republican Party in 2015 is going to be as conservative as the ones in the historically shitty Congress we have now.

Because the Republicans who are in office now are either going to keep to the rightwing flank to protect their right flanks in their primary races, or they will have to race to the center to remain relevant, and get beat in their own primaries by groups like Club for Growth.

The one exception to this seems to be Republicans in hardcore liberal states. These are the only states capable of producing Republicans anymore that don't repel the rest of the country on sight. Romney was, at least at one point, a true moderate. Christie is clearly the frontrunner for 2016, and he's a moderate. The Republican Party has deep-blue states to thank for credible national candidates.

Are Republicans Already Blowing the Next Election?
John B. Judis
December 3, 2012 | 12:00 am

Are Republicans already ignoring the lessons of the presidential election? Last Monday, Republican Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito announced plans to run in 2014 for the West Virginia Senate seat held by Jay Rockefeller. In response, former Rep. Chris Chocola, the president of the Club for Growth, declared the Club’s opposition to Moore’s candidacy. “Congresswoman Capito has a long record of support of bailouts, pork, and bigger government,” he said.

Chocola’s statement was overshadowed by the debate over what to do about the “fiscal cliff.” But it probably says more about the future direction of the Republican Party than House Speaker John Boehner’s daily animadversions on taxes and spending; and what it says is not very good--at least for those Republicans to want to revive their party’s fortunes after this November’s election. It also has some bearing on the fiscal-cliff negotiations.

There is no clear center of power in Republican Party (or, for that matter, the Democratic Party). Primaries are determined by a fairly narrow field of voters – only 15 percent of registered voters, for example, participated this year in Indiana’s hotly contested Republican Senate primary. Candidates depend not only on their personal and political appeal, but also on grassroots support and, of course, money.

That’s where organizations like the Club for Growth come in. Unlike the Republican National Committee or the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Club’s objective is not simply to elect Republicans, but to elect what Chocola calls “true champions of economic freedom.” To do that, the Club is willing to intervene in Republican primaries, even against incumbents. And in the wake of Citizens United, it is able to raise and spend unlimited funds to do so.

A politician’s worse fear is being “primaried.” The Club’s early support can inspire a primary challenger. Its opposition – or merely the possibility of its opposition -- can frighten an incumbent or challenger into taking a more conservative stance. When the Club announces that it is putting a vote on its annual “scorecard” of who is truly conservative, Republicans have been known to change their position overnight, as happened last year with a China currency bill that the Club opposed. Last August, all seven Senators that the Club had backed in 2010 followed the Club’s lead and opposed the much-needed debt ceiling agreement.

In the early 2000s, the Club largely acted alone in primaries, but recently, it has become part of an informal network of hyper-conservative PACs, political groups, talk show hosts and bloggers that have sought to oust Republicans who they believe are not true conservatives. This network includes Senator Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, the Madison Project, various local and national Tea Party organizations, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Erick Erickson’s RedState.

In the beginning, this network targeted liberal Republicans like New Jersey congresswoman Marge Roukema, but it now extends to politicians like Lugar, Capito, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss and even House Speaker Boehner, who by any ordinary definition would be considered conservative. The Club and its allies see themselves as “insurgents” against a Republican “establishment” that falsely claims to be conservative. “What really matters,” Chocola says, “is finding [candidates] who are not part of the establishment.”

In reaction to the November results, the Republican intelligentsia in Washington and New York has called for the party to move to the center on immigration, social issues, and economics in order to broaden its base. Republicans, Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in National Review, have to make themselves “the party of middle-class economic interests.” “It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes on millionaires a little bit,” Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol opined.

But the Club and its network blame the Republicans’ and Romney’s defeat on their not being conservative enough. “The first lesson” of Romney’s defeat, Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation wrote, “is no more moderate Republican candidates.” The reason Romney lost, RedState’s Erickson wrote, is that he “tried to blur the lines with Barack Obama.” While ignoring Richard Mourdock’s defeat in Indiana, Chocola cites the Senate victories of Ted Cruz in Texas and Jeff Flake in Arizona as evidence that when Republicans take Club positions rather than “electable” moderates, they will win.

The Club and its network have yet to unveil their overall strategy for 2014, but some of its members groups have already threatened to back primary challenges to Chambliss and South Carolinian Lindsay Graham. And the threats have had some effect. Chambliss incurred the network’s wrath last summer for attempting to work out a bipartisan compromise on the debt ceiling. After the election, he annoyed them by downplaying his commitment to the pledge, circulated by Grover Norquist, not to raise taxes. “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge.” But by this week, he had tweeted that he is “not in favor of tax increases.” Chambliss’s decision was not the result of pressure from Norquist, but of the looming threat of a primary challenge from the right.

If the Club and its network remain active for 2014 and 2016 elections, they will almost certainly make it more difficult for the Republicans to retake the Senate and to win back the Presidency. That has been true in the past. The Club and Tea Party groups successfully backed far-rightist Sharron Angle in the 2010 Republican Senate primary against an “establishment” conservative who might have beaten Harry Reid. This year, they put their money on Mourdock in Indiana. And if the Club and DeMint’s opposition to Capito is any indication, they will do similar damage to the Republican cause in 2014.

West Virginia is not Arizona. It has gone Republican in the last four presidential elections, because, as my colleague Nate Cohn has noted, voters there see the national Democrats as hostile to coal and guns. But pro-gun, pro-coal Democratic politicians in West Virginia continue to hold most of the state offices and both Senate seats. That’s because West Virginia’s white working class voters, like those in neighboring Pennsylvania and Ohio, still see the Democrats as the party of the New Deal safety net and spending on roads and bridges and schools.

Capito, who won her seat in 2000, and is the daughter of former Governor and moderate Republican Arch Moore, understands the state’s electorate. She backed the expansion of Children’s Health Insurance Program, the extension of unemployment benefits, and infrastructure spending --votes that Chocola cites as reasons to oppose her. She is also an excellent campaigner. She could conceivably defeat Rockefeller and, if he were to retire, another Democratic opponent. But a Republican who espoused the kind of anti-government policies favored by the Club and its network and was able to defeat Capito in a sparsely attended Republican primary – 7 percent of the state’s registered voters went to the polls in the last contested Republican senate primary -- would be likely to lose to almost any competent Democrat.

Republicans who worry most about winning a Senate majority are happy with Moore’s candidacy. Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, the new chairman of the NRSC, leapt to her defense after the Club and DeMint attacked her. But the Club and DeMint are oblivious to the peculiar mix of liberalism and conservatism that characterizes many voters in states like West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. At the bottom, Chocola, DeMint, and the Tea Party activists don’t believe that Republican candidates have to move to the center on economic and social issues. They see America neatly divided between a “socialist” far left and a “conservative” far right between which the twain shall never meet. “I think the whole concept of compromise and bipartisanship is silly,” Chocola says.

Their view echoes that of leftwing Democrats of the 1980s that “there is nothing in the center of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” That piece of wisdom led to repeated Democratic defeats; and it will do likewise for the Republicans. The network’s view also makes continuing Congressional gridlock over taxes and spending likely. And that could affect more than the Republican Party. If Congress can’t avert the fiscal cliff, or continues to battle over the debt limit, that will endanger America’s fragile recovery from the Great Recession.

The reality is that until the GOP starts to get in line with the libertarian wing of their party, they'll continue to lose elections.

It's hilarious how they expect us to still blindly vote for the "R" despite their attempts to demonize, marginalize, and disenfranchise us. Delusion reigns from the very top of the GOP. They aren't a party anymore, they're an echo chamber of stupidity and arrogance.

Meanwhile, while they run a slate of slightly dumber liberals every year, more and more people realize we're not getting an actual choice from the two-party system, hence the growing number of independent voters.

The GOOD news is...8 of the 11 Rs that Paul endorsed were elected to the House of Reps...and more have won at state levels or attained key positions within the party. It was the moderate Rs that lost their seats in the House.

GOP wanted nothing to do with real issues because they're just as corrupt as the left.

They did whatever they could to prevent Paul from being successful in this year's campaign. He would have stomped Obama in the presidential debates..I think we all know that.

The problem w/ the GOP is that they're no longer true conservatives. They're just as far left as their opponents.

You are certifiable if you believe that. RP1 would have been beaten like a red haired step child. He's so completely out of touch with mainstream America he couldn't see it with my telescope on a super clear night.

RP1 is without question the worst candidate ever offered up as a Presidential hopeful and I include Rick Santorum.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris616

High Tech is Sorcery and the people who are really powerful are literally telling people to commit crimes using the psychic interspace created by the WWW and Wireless. They are controlling peoples actions like drones . The two things are deeply intertwined. The more man's brain interfaces with machines the creepier it gets. They use brains separate from a human body in a supercomputer and you have The Image of the Beast. The military has been doing this since the 50s

You are certifiable if you believe that. RP1 would have been beaten like a red haired step child. He's so completely out of touch with mainstream America he couldn't see it with my telescope on a super clear night.

RP1 is without question the worst candidate ever offered up as a Presidential hopeful and I include Rick Santorum.

It's hard to imagine Ron Paul being any worse than any other Republican nominated the last 20 years.

You are certifiable if you believe that. RP1 would have been beaten like a red haired step child. He's so completely out of touch with mainstream America he couldn't see it with my telescope on a super clear night.

Patently false. Libertarian sentiment has largely been increasing in this country since 1993, especially in recent years.

Quote:

RP1 is without question the worst candidate ever offered up as a Presidential hopeful and I include Rick Santorum.

Moving even farther center-left isn't what the Republicans need. Mitt Romney couldn't beat Obama, because he is too much like Obama. Republicans are losing elections because conservatives aren't showing up to the polls. Democrats aren't smart enough to differentiate between a good Democrat and a bad Democrat, as long as there is a D, they are showing up and voting. Conservatives are more intelligent and a lot more principled. They will not hold their nose and vote R, they will just stay home.

Moving even farther center-left isn't what the Republicans need. Mitt Romney couldn't beat Obama, because he is too much like Obama. Republicans are losing elections because conservatives aren't showing up to the polls. Democrats aren't smart enough to differentiate between a good Democrat and a bad Democrat, as long as there is a D, they are showing up and voting. Conservatives are more intelligent and a lot more principled. They will not hold their nose and vote R, they will just stay home.

What principles are Republicans adhering to when they don't do their civic duty and vote? What intelligence is being shown by sticking the fingers in the ears and going nah, nah, nah about evolution?

What principles are Republicans adhering to when they don't do their civic duty and vote? What intelligence is being shown by sticking the fingers in the ears and going nah, nah, nah about evolution?

Your name DementedLogic suits you well.

Sometimes, not voting can be stronger than voting. Unfortunately the GOP didn't get the message of this election. The message was that conservatives will not support a left-leaning candidate. If the GOP wants to win another presidential election, they need to return to the principles that made the party great. Mittens got the ABO vote. Unfortunately for him, that is pretty much the only vote he got.